Preservation of food and drink has been of importance for humans for generations. One means of preserving meats includes packing the meat in salt, or storing the meat in a salt brine. Freezing has also been known for many years as a means of food preservation, but has only been practical in the past century as a result of the invention of commercial and home freezers. Basically, preservation involves preventing the oxidation and dehydration of the food or drink. Additionally, the prevention of the growth of bacteria and fungi is also an objective to aid in the preservation.
Materials such as paints, printing inks, emulsions, and liquid solutions in addition to foods and consumable liquids tend to dry out as a result of evaporation of a component of the liquid and form a layer at the surface as a result of oxidation. The problem arises as a result of the liquid being exposed to the ambient atmosphere where it is stored. Prevention of such evaporation requires a seal on the storage container openings to maintain air and fluid impermeability. Often this is accomplished with a cap or lid that is specifically designed to interact with the container in which the fluid or food article is stored. Plastic lids closely hold a flange of the container to maintain impermeability. Caps can be threaded onto the top of a bottle to force the rim of the bottle opening against a resilient seal bonded to the cap interior.
However, such fixed volume storage arrangements generally trap a significant amount of the ambient atmosphere within the container along with the substance to be stored, and especially so when the volume of the item to be stored is significantly smaller than the interior volume of the container. This volume of trapped atmosphere can still cause oxidation and permit conditions for the growth of bacteria and fungi. One solution has been to place the article to be stored in a plastic bag which is then vacuum sealed. While this is effective for some solid food items, the method becomes impractical for the storage of liquids or for the short term storage of small volume articles.
In general, current packaging designs vary throughout the industry and don't necessarily provide a consistent sealable covering for a container that both evacuates air from the container and maintains impermeability to both air and liquid. A primary problem is that covering materials such as a conforming lid, a plastic film or an aluminum foil must rely upon engagement with the top rim or outside of the container in order to provide a seal thus trapping ambient atmosphere in the container, as well as, the item to be stored.
Therefore, a universal container seal is needed that can be utilized on different sized containers and further, that can be engaged with an interior surface of the container to minimize the amount of ambient atmosphere sealed in conjunction with the article to be stored.